Browsing Tag

girls

Gender & Sexuality, Girl Power: You Are Enough, Guest Posts, Young Voices

In My Mother’s Bathroom

September 23, 2015

Note from Jen Pastiloff, founder of The Manifest-Station: This is a piece for my “Young Voices” series. I am looking for more young voices to publish so please submit if you have something to say. Please note, if you are under 18 you must have parental permission unless you are using a pseudonym. I am so excited to be working on the book Girl Power: You Are Enough, as well as the workshop for young women which has been a HUGE success so far. Please help me spread the word and sign up or sign your daughters/nieces/friends. I am also in the process of selecting ambassadors to represent #GirlPowerYouAreEnough. More information on this on my instagram at @jenpastiloff. Love, Jen

In My Mother’s Bathroom
By Emily Falkowski

Over the years I learned how to kiss girls without feeling like my abuser. This is one of the small ways in which my voice came knocking at my gut, demanding to be let in.

The first time I fooled around with a girl I was fourteen. I kissed Brianna up against the wall of the astronomy building at summer camp. I pushed my groin into hers and imagined Brianna pinned there against the brick, like moss.

“You’re so aggressive,” she said. “I didn’t expect this.”

“I’m sorry. I’m nervous. Should I stop?”

“No,” Brianna pushed her tits up at me when I grabbed her wrists with one hand and pinned them behind her back, “I like it. It’s like you’re a boy.”

When she said that I got intensely wet. I wanted to be a boy. I started to unzip her pants and imagined that I had a penis. How it would be hard and corporeal against her thigh, a real thing she could pull out of my pants. Then I would push Brianna onto the ground and make her fuck me with her mouth.

I pulled her left breast out off her bra and wrapped my mouth around the nipple. She said my name, and I felt my body go numb, I couldn’t feel anything below my belly button. This wasn’t surprising, I was used to this sort of thing happening when someone I was with said my name, or tried to touch me below the waist.

“Mmm, please don’t say my name right now.”

“Okay,” She giggled, “What do you want to be called?”

 

My earliest idea of womanhood is limited, defined by the sexual anatomy of a female. I’m four in my mother’s bathroom watching her dry off after a shower, wrapping her hair in a green towel and propping one leg up on the bath-tub. Continue Reading…

Girl Power: You Are Enough, Guest Posts, Jen Pastiloff, Jen's Musings

You’re Enough. Don’t Be An Asshole & Go Forgetting That.

August 16, 2015

By Jen Pastiloff

As you know if you follow me on social media or come to my workshops etc, I am very passionate about my latest project: Girl Power: You Are Enough. And yes, the book is on the way. Stay tuned for more on that front.

By the way, hi. It’s been a while. I’ve been busy. I’ve been in a funk. I haven’t been writing. I’ve been this, that, the other thing, what does it matter- when I am not writing or creating I am dead inside, and I am tired of feeling dead inside so here I am. Hi.

I am ready to be back. I just finished my friend Rene Denfeld’s book The Enchanted and it is one of the best books I HAVE EVER READ IN MY ENTIRE LIFE SO I MUST SCREAM. Read it now.

 

I was inspired after reading The Enchanted so I: a) fell as asleep with a highlighter on my bed and ruined my sheets even as I said, “Jen, don’t fall asleep with a highlighter open because you will ruin your sheets. b) Dreamt of creating and enchantment. c) woke up and ate some weird salad because I am on a cleanse, not like you care but hey, my blog, my rules and this is my 8th day with no coffee or booze. Yay, me! This is big for me as someone who exists in extremes and knows no moderation. d) Decided to write to you. Are you there? Hi.

So, my latest project is basically my workshop I do but specifically designed for young women. To remind them that they are enough and that they do have a voice. (Same goes for all of us. Duh.) It is an empowerment workshop. It is a workshop about embracing fear and letting go of what “they” think, and basically, remembering that you are a motherf*cking superstar. (We all are. Unless you are an asshole. Don’t be an asshole* see footnote.) It launches next month in Princeton on September 19 (must be at least 13) followed by NYC the next day on September 20th (must be 16 for that one due to studio policy.) There will be some yoga (no experience required, just as in my regular workshops.) I use the yoga as a vehicle to get the participants more open and vulnerable. To release their armor, as it were. You have to bring a journal and an open heart and a sense of humor (as always.) And your badass self. So, if you have any daughters or your friends do, or neighbors, or you yourself, please sign up. If you cannot afford it, I have a few tickets to give away from beautiful women who have sponsored you to go. Lara Heimann will co-lead the workshop with me and my first ambassador, Justine Clifton will give a little chat. This is my passion right now and I am here on my bed, on a hot summer day, begging you, wait, let me get on my knees, I AM ON MY KNEES, begging you to help me with this on all fronts. This work is important.

highlighted sheets.

highlighted sheets.

Justine Clifton

Justine Clifton

 

Book Girl Power: You Are Enough now! A workshop for girls and teens. Space is limited. Sep 19 Princeton! Sep 20th NYC. The book is also forthcoming from Jen Pastiloff.

Book Girl Power: You Are Enough now! A workshop for girls and teens. Space is limited. Sep 19 Princeton! Sep 20th NYC. The book is also forthcoming from Jen Pastiloff.

Continue Reading…

Binders, Gender & Sexuality, Girl Power: You Are Enough, Guest Posts

Brad, Interrupted. The One On Gendered Hypocrisy.

June 4, 2015

beauty-hunting-jen-logo-black1-300x88

Jen Pastiloff here. This is my blog. Welcome, if you’re new to the site. Originally, it was just my own writing, but when I realized I had a huge readership I decided to open it up as a platform for other writers. But excuse me while I say my two cents before said other writer steps in.

So, the other day I was in South Dakota (was leading a workshop there as I do a couple times a year) when someone sent me a Snap. As in SnapChat. (Yes, I am 12 years old now.) A mom had sent her teen (yay!) to my Seattle workshop and was all fired up because her daughter, Corrine, came home from school visibly upset after a talk they had been given at school. Her mom (Echo is her name and don’t you love her just for that?) sent me a clip of his video and his website. So there I was, in Sodak, about to lead a workshop and I got pissed. Real pissed. I was reminded why I am writing Girl Power: You Are Enough (which is with publishers right now- OMG) and I decided that I had to say something about this fella. Brad Henning is his name. So I made a cup of coffee and sat down my phone on my little tripod there on the kitchen table in Sioux Falls and I said this:

I'm pissed off!! This is NOT OK!!! No slut shaming!

I then posted it on the interwebs and asked any of my writer friends if they would like to write an essay about it for my site. The beautiful Laurence Dumortier said she wanted to tackle it. Her last essay on the site blew my mind ( it is a must read) so I didn’t hesitate to say yes yes yes. Someone called me a YesSparker the other day. I like that. Yes.

After you read her essay I would a) Love it if you shared it.

b) I mean, I would really love it if you shared.

c) Create a dialogue around this.

I know not everyone agrees with Laurence and I. Some people have even given me shit for bringing this up. I refuse to stay quiet though. I am not suggesting that Brad is a bad man, I just believe his methods are antiquated and his message is outdated and involves shaming. Shaming is never okay.

Also, I am a feminist and his message just rubs me wrong. It feels misogynistic and tired and frankly, the opposite of what I am teaching out in the world. Girl Power: You Are Enough. No matter what Brad, or any other person, says. I hope to see some of you at the launch of the Girl Power workshops September 19th and 20th in Princeton and NYC. Oh yea, and Lena Dunham followed me this morning on Twitter. Girls + Girl Power: You Are Enough. Kapow!!

ps- This is who I am writing my book for. Teens like Nicole. So brave. Eff yea! Last year she was suicidal but today she is saying, “I am enough.” So, can I get another EFF YEA! Fuck yea!

Nicole 16, on Girl Power: You Are Enough.

Here is the video Echo sent me. (Brad goes to schools and gives this lecture.) I have actually heard he is a lovely man. I am not taking away from his loveliness. But please, when it comes to this, he doesn’t seem to be the right person for this job.

https://youtu.be/LgWBNZjuQ-s

Brad, Interrupted by Laurence Dumortier

Brad Henning is a self-styled relationship expert who visits schools to talk to students about dating. To the question “Why do girls wear makeup?” (Brad likes to style things as a Q&A) his answer is: “Would a guy want to take a girl out on a first date, if he could see what she looks like when she first wakes up in the morning the same way her parents do? Probably not.” Despite professing this kind of sexist nonsense, Brad Henning is paid by school districts to speak to teenagers about sex and relationships. Let that sink in for a moment.

When I mentioned to a friend that I’d been reading, with a mixture of fascination and horror, about Brad Henning’s work, she wondered if it was the same Brad she’d had to listen to a dozen years before during a high-school assembly. A little research confirmed it was. After a moment she reflected, “I will never forget how much I was shamed for being overly sensitive/humorless/man-hating/slutty/bad both during and after that fucking assembly senior year of high school.” This essay is for her and for all the girls who had to listen to Brad’s lectures, and haven’t forgotten what it felt like to be chided and shamed.

Henning is a fan of the pseudo-evolutionary-biology—bogus in both in its premises and its explanations—that asserts as fact things like: guys are insatiably horny, you see, so that the species won’t die out! And also, girls have low sex-drive, on the other hand, so that the planet doesn’t get over-populated! Worse still, though, Henning promotes the tired falsehoods that form the backbone of rape culture. “The girls who give sex to their boyfriends outside of marriage,” Henning writes, “are undermining the maturing process guys need so badly.” Guys, Brad decrees, cannot control their sexual appetites. They need girls to do that for them. Girls who don’t do that make boys powerless to resist their own urges. (Is it any wonder, when girls are raped, that they run into so much victim-blaming?)

In one of his vignettes, Henning conjures a fairy-tale prince. He’s sowed his wild oats but now he’s looking to settle down:

Handsome, rugged, self sufficient…He’s the hero and he’s looking for his fair maiden. When he sees her for the first time, he is mesmerized by her beauty and charm. He longs for her… But then…of all the dastardly things…he finds out she has been with just about every guy in the realm. He realizes his fair maiden isn’t as fair as he’d hoped. Does he want to fight for her hand? No. This isn’t what he’s dreamed about all his life. He’s been dreaming about “A FAIR MAIDEN” not the town slut.

Never mind that the prince himself is not a virgin, it’s the girl who is disdained as a “town slut.” (I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that rape victims, if they go public, are forced to account for their whole past sexual history, as though it had anything to do with the assault in question.)

Of a girl who has already had sex but would still like to have a loving relationship, Henning takes the chilling position: “But now it’s too late for her… She can’t just change her mind about being wild like the guys.” This double-standard is not just bizarre and unfair, but actually dangerous. It reinforces the cultural script that girls who have had sex are, in fact, damaged goods, worthless and irreparably marred. The implied question is: why should boys bother to reign in their raging sexual appetites with a girl who “gives it away”? I can’t decide whether it is more heartbreaking or rage-inducing that girls are made to listen to this toxic garbage.

Even worse, Henning—not content with pushing the gendered hypocrisy of his ideas about sex, or even the shamey, rapey tone of his relationship advice—has let his opinions about girls wander even farther afield, sermonizing about their appearance, their tastes, their habits and mannerisms, the very expression of their feelings. That an older man would feel entitled to dictate a girl’s feelings to herself is, unfortunately, not all that surprising. But the endorsement of this bizarre intrusion by school districts that invite and pay Henning to come to their schools, and then force girls to sit through this awfulness, is perhaps the saddest and most angering thing of all.

Against that sadness and anger, here is a small but heartfelt gesture of imagination and hope:

In the part of his lecture where Brad intones, unimpeded, about all the many things girls do that “turn guys off,” I imagine, instead, a voice flooding the auditorium, warm and loving and at times a little sarcastic, interrupting the dude onstage in order to offer girls an alternate point of view. One that sees no need to control girls’ behavior, but instead believes in their intelligence and good-sense and inherent value.

In italics, then, excerpts from Brad Henning’s talk—interrupted by the voice of feminine wisdom and trust.

Since you asked the question about what turns guys off, here’s a list of them!

I don’t think we did, actually, but it should be good for a chuckle.

Turn-offs:

Girls who giggle (guys think you’re laughing at them)

How timely! Girls, gather round, permission is hereby granted to giggle, to guffaw, even to cackle. It’s not your job to worry what others think of it. (By the way, most of the time girls aren’t laughing at a guy. But this time, in fact, we are!)

 

Girls who never smile

I love you, April Ludgates of the world. Don’t ever change just because some Brad wants you to.

 

Girls who have lost their mystery

I don’t know what the fuck this means. What is this? Is it code for “girls who’ve lost their virginity”? Gross. The fetishizing of virginity is one of the creepiest and most loathsome things about patriarchal culture. Please ignore.

 

Girls who need every hair in place

You do you. Be as polished or as scruffy as you want.

 

Girls who never stop talking

Talk away. I like the things you say.

 

Girls who are boy-crazy

Brads feel threatened that girls are capable of desire. It makes them uneasy that girls may, at times, be boy-crazy or girl-crazy or both. But Brads don’t get a say over how you feel. You can be giddy, or horny, or dizzy with infatuation. I’ll hold this space for all your emotions.

 

Girls who brag about their grades

Go for it, love. You earned it.

 

Girls who cry all the time

It’s okay to cry. It’s okay for boys to cry too.

 

Girls who always need attention

Everyone needs attention. You matter, too.

 

Girls without a mind of their own

Gracious, the irony! Girls can think for themselves, no thanks to Brad, though.

 

Girls who “screech” when they see their friends

It is a magical thing to be in the presence of those who really get you, and love you for who you are. Lord knows, Brads won’t do that for you. So screech your joy if you want. Caw, whistle, yodel, sing. It’s all good.

 

Girls who can’t take a joke

Especially rape jokes, right?!

 

Girls who make everything seem like it’s the guy’s fault

What can I say? It’s true. Obnoxious guys like Brad don’t like to be held accountable.

 

 

Girls who “tell all”

Speak your truth. Secrets empower abusers.

 

Girls who take things too seriously and are overly sensitive

If I could gather all the serious and sensitive girls in the world and give them a hug, I would. If I could gather all the flirty and funny girls, I’d give them a hug too. Often these are the same girls, for we are complex and multi-faceted. Brads would rather we be small, narrow, predictable and easy to control. But we are large and contain multitudes and won’t easily be subdued.

 

About Laurence Dumortier: I’m finishing up a PhD in English with an emphasis on gender and sexuality. My short stories have been published in One Story as well as smaller magazines. I’m at work on my first novel, set in the early 1960s. My twitter handle is @ElleDeeTweets.

Book Girl Power: You Are Enough now! Space is limited. Sep 19 Princeton! Sep 20th NYC.

Book Girl Power: You Are Enough now! Space is limited. Sep 19 Princeton! Sep 20th NYC.

The 12 Day Detox is here. Sign up now for June 20th cleanse. Space is limited. This detox comes at just the perfect time. Reprogram your body and mind as we move into the new season of spring. This is your time of rejuvenation and renewal.This is not a juice fast, or a detox based on deprivation.

The 12 Day Detox is here. Sign up now for June 20th cleanse. Space is limited. This detox comes at just the perfect time. Reprogram your body and mind as we move into the new season of spring. This is your time of rejuvenation and renewal.This is not a juice fast, or a detox based on deprivation.

Do you want the space and joy to get back into your body? To get into your words and stories?  Join Jen Pastiloff and best-selling author Lidia Yuknavitch over Labor Day weekend 2015 for their 2nd Writing & The Body Retreat in Ojai, California following their last one, which sold out in 48 hours. You do NOT have to be a writer or a yogi.  "So I’ve finally figured out how to describe Jen Pastiloff's Writing and the Body yoga retreat with Lidia Yuknavitch. It’s story-letting, like blood-letting but more medically accurate: Bleed out the stories that hold you down, get held in the telling by a roomful of amazing women whose stories gut you, guide you. Move them through your body with poses, music, Jen’s booming voice, Lidia’s literary I’m-not-sorry. Write renewed, truthful. Float-stumble home. Keep writing." ~ Pema Rocker, attendee of Writing & The Body Feb 2015

Do you want the space and joy to get back into your body?
To get into your words and stories? Join Jen Pastiloff and best-selling author Lidia Yuknavitch over Labor Day weekend 2015 for their 2nd Writing & The Body Retreat in Ojai, California following their last one, which sold out in 48 hours. You do NOT have to be a writer or a yogi.
“So I’ve finally figured out how to describe Jen Pastiloff’s Writing and the Body yoga retreat with Lidia Yuknavitch. It’s story-letting, like blood-letting but more medically accurate: Bleed out the stories that hold you down, get held in the telling by a roomful of amazing women whose stories gut you, guide you. Move them through your body with poses, music, Jen’s booming voice, Lidia’s literary I’m-not-sorry. Write renewed, truthful. Float-stumble home. Keep writing.” ~ Pema Rocker, attendee of Writing & The Body Feb 2015

 

Guest Posts, Self Image, Self Love, Young Voices

A 19 Year Old Girl Talks About “Being Enough.”

April 20, 2015

beauty-hunting-jen-logo-black1-300x88

By Sarah B Levine

Note from Jen Pastiloff: I am currently writing a book for young girls based on the workshop that Lara Heimann and I have co-created: Girl Power: You Are Enough. Last week I was in my hometown of Philadelphia leading one of my workshops and right before it started I bumped into a beautiful young girl. I asked her if I could interview her. She said yes, having no idea what I would ask her. (My kind of human!!) The video is at the bottom so you can watch after you read her stunning post. I put a call out to young girls to write about when they feel the best about themselves, if they feel like they are enough, and a letter to their younger or future selves. I intend to include some in the book. (The book will also feature letters from various women to their younger selves, such as Christy Turlington, Cheryl Strayed, Ashley Ford Megan Stielstra, Emily Rapp, Angela G. Patel, Rachel Pastiloff, Lara Heimann, Rene Denfeld, Lidia Yuknavitch, Suleika Jaouad and more. I am so excited by this project that I haven’t been able to sleep. That and I have been binge watching Parenthood on Netflix but that’s a whole other story. It’s been a dream of mine to work with young women yet I had no idea how to start making it happen. Then, it just happened organically. They started coming to my workshop, in droves. So Lara and I gave birth to this baby. Girl Power: You Are Enough.

The time is now for this. So the beautiful girl I bumped into at the studio saw my call on Facebook and submitted her post. I wanted to share it here because, well. You’ll see. May we all remember that we are enough.

May we have people that remind us.

ps- I am reminding you. YOU are enough.

*  *  *  *

Dear Jen,

As per requested on your Facebook, I decided to answer what it means to be enough. And after a couple of hours at my computer going through tears, smiles, snorts of laughter and everything in between I feel I have captured a part of me I had been unable to acknowledge for a long time. A part of me that has been quiet and dormant as a voice in the back of my head for a long time. A part of me, I feel is also a part of many other girls, boys, young and old all over.

Thank you for already making a change in my life this past week. Everything happens for a reason.

Sarah B Levine (The girl you met at  your Dhyana yoga studio in Philadelphia impromptu interview)

 

****************************************************************************

All of this happened in the comfort of my own home and mind. I crossed path with a number of people in my life that all encouraged me loved me and supported me and saw I was an old soul. Rarely what I am writing is what majority of those people got to see. This is what I saw when I looked in the mirror.

Why am I enough?

Why should I be enough? Who am I enough for? Who would ever love me? Why can’t I be looked at like that, with admiration? Why do my legs touch? Why is my nose so big, my belly not as toned or my butt droopy? Don’t take my picture it might point out a new flaw. My teeth aren’t as white or straight as hers. My hair isn’t as curly; I wish it were naturally more beautiful than I wouldn’t have to try so hard. These are the things that would go through my mind- sometimes more often than not. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, healing, Self Image, Self Love, Yoga

Teaching Yoga To Teen Girls With Sexual Trauma and The Connection To Us All

March 26, 2015

beauty-hunting-jen-logo-black1-300x88By Anne Falkowski.

 

I had my own sexual trauma at thirteen. It took only a few minutes. I can’t remember it all, but can still feel the pebbles and grit embedded in my opened-up palms, see my ripped jeans, and taste the blood inside my mouth from where my face was shoved into the ground. I can still smell their boozed-up breath on my neck and feel their thick hands and fingers. It was a one time event, but my perpetrators went to school with me. I had to face all three of them for the next five years in classrooms and even at parties. I had no one to talk to, no therapy, no coping strategy.

I begged my parents and the male police officer, who spoke with me about it immediately afterwards, to drop it. I gave no details. Details would have made me cry.

I’ll be fine.” I said.

What I wanted to say was, “Shut up. Shut up.

And like a miracle, they did. My parents and the cop, they shut up. In a span of less than fifteen minutes, they were gone.

I was left alone with the sound of my body hitting the pavement hard and the boys laughing and squealing in my head. It was like taking a deep inhale, closing off your ears, eyes, nose and mouth, and never exhaling again. I failed to mention “the event” again until I was 30 and in therapy for self-hatred so thick, I could stir it. Thanks God for the panic attacks that led me to the office of a persistent and wise therapist. I had no idea my low self-esteem and carefully hidden self-destructive behaviors were linked to what happened at thirteen.  All I knew was I had spiraled to a black bottom and couldn’t find my way back up. Continue Reading…

Books, Guest Posts, poetry

3 Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye.

August 25, 2014

By Naomi Shihab Nye 

Dear Jen, these 3 little poems all remind me of you in different ways because
you really make the most of your days!!!!  Love, your fan club prez. Naomi (arm-wrestling with 1,000 others who say they are also the Prez. Imposters, all!) xo Naomi Shihab Nye

From A MAZE ME (Poems for girls)

Freshly out in paperback 2014, first published 2005 (Greenwillow Books)

note from Jen: Naomi is one of my favorite people on the planet as well as one of the greatest living poets of our time!

Jen Pastiloff and Naomi Shihab Nye 2014

Jen Pastiloff and Naomi Shihab Nye 2014

Continue Reading…